So most of my gaming/roleplaying experience from 3.5, Pathfinder, free form forums, and MUDs. I ended up playing a classless/levelless permadeath MUDs and was ruined for life afterwards. I know the general concept of what I want to play, but I'm having a bit of a tough time with the core mechanic. Namely, what kind of dice do I use? d20s? d10s? d6s? d3s? Do I use a single die, or dice pools (hurrah Storyteller system or FATE Core)?

-Using a levelless/classless system, you instead have "Ranks" for your skills and abilities (combat and non, probably no predefined list, based on setting and GM discretion you think of a skill/ability and you do it; guidelines will eventually be made).

-You gain a rank by filling in enough 'tics' to qualify. The number of tics required increase by 1 for each Rank. The first rank requires 3 tics of investment. (ex: Rank 1 requires 3 tics, Rank 2 needs 4 tics, etc)

-You invest a tic in a skill by using that skill. Considering options for investing relative to success/failure later on in development. (Ex: attack someone with a shortsword, you invest a tic in Shortsword; you lie to someone, you invest a tic in Lying)

-You can invest a soft cap of 3 tics into any skill per session, but there's no hard cap to the number of tics you can invest each session. (Ex: Put 3 tics in Shortsword and it's done for that session, but you can put tics in any other skill you use until you hit 3 in those skills. "Grinding" is obviously a problem, will think possible solutions for that later.)

-Examples of # sessions needed to play in order to acquire a specific Rank:

My problem is I'm not sure what those Ranks should represent in actual mechanical value. Flat bonus to a die roll or more dice to roll? If I use the flat bonus, what die do I use? If I add more dice to roll, how should I determine what a success is? Storyteller's success/failure system?

A d4 or d6 seems a little bit more reasonable. Someone completely unskilled in something could get lucky and roll a 4 or 6, beating out someone with 3 or 5 Ranks in that skill and spent 5 or 9 play sessions (around 1 or 2 months respectively if you play once a week) focusing on that through sheer determination and/or dumb luck.

If I use a d3 or FUDGE/FATE dice, then I could have a bit more control over the aptitude of an average person. If I used 4 FUDGE dice, the best they could get is +4, but odds are they'd probably end up with a +2 (I think? Been awhile since I've played FATE and I'm working on my math skills).

With these options someone with less skill wouldn't be able to beat someone who is extremely competent in that field, and there would be a somewhat narrow range that would separate individuals of similar ability. A <d4/d6/FUDGE dice value range> rank difference would make fair competition impossible in that field under equal circumstances.

As for things like damage dealt, how fast you move, how much punishment you can take, how strong/fast/wise/smart/etc you are, I'm probably going to utilize the same tic investment/Rank system but modify it a bit or make it so that a particular race or character can only have a static maximum on those things. So a human could never have more than 5 Strength which would give an additional +5 bonus to skills/abilities that would reasonably utilize Strength.

Weapons/armor/items/circumstances would probably also add/subtract values to things like damage done, damage taken, chances of success/failure, etc. As an example let's pretend Bob the Human couldn't normally do more than 3 damage (through 3 Strength let's say), but if they have a sword they could do an additional 2 points of damage. If he took the time to douse the sword in oil and set it on fire, it could do another 2 points of damage. If he was flanking his opponent with a friend, he could get a 1 point bonus to successfully hitting his opponent.

Probably going to go the normal 3.5/PF route and have damage types, resistances, and immunities.

Thoughts? Advice? Criticism? Muffins?

JeminiZero

2014-05-17, 07:23 AM

As far as classless systems go, you might want to take a look at the M&M system. 3e is available on its SRD (http://www.d20herosrd.com/). Although meant for superhero games, it can also be applied reasonably well to fantasy games.

EdroGrimshell

2014-05-17, 04:15 PM

If you want to keep to D&D, I favor Complete Control from Dreamscarred Press, I quite like the system for its flexibility. It's essentially a "Pay Exp to gain class features" system.